Janessa Slater (“Saturday Night Live” cast member Vanessa Bayer) has been making her mark all over YouTube with her web series “Sound Advice.” The media coach can already count music artists like Tegan and Sara, Haim and Drake as satisfied clients, so why not offer up her services to the king of pop parody, “Weird Al” Yankovic?

Yankovic sat down with Janessa recently – for which reasons it’s not quite clear, because he certainly doesn’t seem to be in need of an image makeover. In fact, Yankovic was so sure of himself that in response to Janessa’s question about whether or not he’s a legit musician (because he doesn’t do drugs, drink or smoke) he paraphrased MC Hammer: “I would have to say that I am so legit that I shan’t be quitting anytime soon.” Read More »

Starz and the BBC released the first image of Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen from their co-production of “The Dresser” today, in addition to announcing that Emily Watson (“The Theory of Everything”) and Sarah Lancashire (“Happy Valley”) will join the cast of the original made-for-TV movie currently shooting in London.

“The Dresser” is based on the 1980 Ronald Harwood play that follows one night in the lives of a troupe of actors during World War II as they are about to perform “King Lear.” It was first adapted into a feature film in 1983 featuring Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay. Read More »

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is currently shooting “Snowden,” Oliver Stone’s film adaptation about the life of classified-documents leaker Edward Snowden. Today the actor shared a first-look photo on Facebook of him in military gear, when Snowden was enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2004. Gordon-Levitt says the shot was taking during a scene where Snowden is receiving basic training (he’d later get an administrative discharge after breaking both his legs).

“Today’s scenes felt like a really good way to start this shoot,” he wrote. “It was hard, but of course, nowhere near as hard as real basic training.”

This season of “House of Cards” has been weighed down by a focus on governance. But in the third episode the writers seem to have remembered that they’re in the entertainment business—so they (poof!) make up a foreign policy arc for Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) that is largely divorced from reality yet has enough true-to-life elements to make things confusing.

The U.S. is hosting Russian President Viktor Petrov (Lars Mikkelsen), a Putin-esque autocrat—down to the KGB background—who never misses a chance to tweak the American president. The episode begins with Underwood watching protesters outside the White House chanting against Petrov’s media censorship and homophobic policies (a nod to Russian legislation passed in 2013). Read More »

Louisville’s biggest rock export My Morning Jacket returns this spring with their seventh studio album “The Waterfall,” out May 3 on ATO/Capitol Records. The band retreated to Stinson Beach, Calif., just north of San Francisco, to record the 10 tracks, with additional sessions taking place in Portland, Ore. and Louisville.

The time spent in the Northern California area seemed to rub off too, as evident in the band’s first single today, “Big Decisions.” The song is a mid-tempo rock number, rock guitars flirting with pedal steel guitars, while lead singer Jim James asks “what do you want me to do?/Make all the big decisions for you?”

“For me, every record has the spirit of where we made it,” James said in a statement. “Stinson Beach was so psychedelic and focused. It was almost like we lived on our own little moon out there. It feels like you’re up in the sky.” Read More »

It’s been a steady build for Nicki Bluhm, who has built a fan base through steady touring, a viral video and a well-placed ad campaign. She and her band the Gramblers return this spring with a new album that includes the song “High Neck Lace,” which premieres today on Speakeasy.

It’s a slow-burner, with keening steel guitar and eddies of strings surrounding Bluhm’s warm, inviting vocals. Her husband and the Gramblers’ musical director, Tim Bluhm, wrote the tune, about a woman dressed in finery and waiting by herself for a lover whose fate is unknown.

So, wait a minute, Neil Patrick Harris: You’re telling us you can make steam fly out of your ears, but all we got at this year’s Academy Awards was that tedious predictions trick?

NPH has made up for his Oscar night jokes in spades with a new Funny or Die video in which he celebrates the 70th anniversary of the beloved children’s character Thomas the Tank Engine. The clip presents Harris as the world’s biggest (and oldest) “Tankie” (that’s slang for hardcore fans of the kids’ show “Thomas and Friends,” btw), who visits a group of schoolchildren to talk all things Thomas. Read More »

On Monday, Kanye West premiered the official studio version of his next single, “All Day,” on radio station Hot 97. This came on the heels of his ambitious debut performance of the song during last week’s BRIT Awards (flamethrower, anyone?).

The trippy, synth-heavy tune features Allan Kingdom and Theophilus London, as well as a whistled interlude by none other than recent Kanye collaborator and upstart Paul McCartney.

“All Day” is the latest release from Kanye’s upcoming seventh album, “So Help Me God” (which Kanye will most likely drop as a “surprise”),and it is currently available for purchase on iTunes. Read More »

If Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake were able to deliver five different incarnations of the History of Rap alone, there is no telling how long “The Tonight Show” will be able to milk its latest musical medley segment, the History of Duets.

While on “The Tonight Show” Monday to promote her latest album, “Piece by Piece,” Kelly Clarkson became the latest artist to grab a mic and join Fallon and the Roots for yet another stellar journey through pop history.

From “I Got You Babe” (which had the first “American Idol” winner giving Christina Aguilera a run for her Cher-impersonating money) to “Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong” (with the “Tonight Show” host picking up the Joe Cocker-impression torch from the late John Belushi), Fallon and Clarkson solidified themselves as our new favorite musical-comedy duo. Read More »

The first four weeks of AMC’s “Better Call Saul” have jumped between world-building, character development, and plot machination. It’s made for a nice balance of necessary moments that happen near the beginning of a show’s run along with the more subtle things that fans of Vince Gilligan (and “Breaking Bad”) have come to love like stellar camerawork, great writing, and deep, rich characters.

This week’s episode, “Alpine Shepherd Boy,” brings us to the official halfway point of the show’s first season, and it works slightly differently than the previous episodes.

Much of the episode focuses on giving viewers a deeper look into Chuck‘s mental illness, and the ramifications of that for the character and those around him, while the rest of the episode plays up the comedy of Jimmy McGill‘s world as he tries to make it on the straight-and-narrow doing various types of lawyer work that came to him as a result of last week’s televised “heroic” act. Read More »

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.